A former Bosnian Serb soldier who confessed to executing at least 100 Muslims from Srebrenica in 1995 testified at Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial Monday that the massacres must have been ordered by higher ranking military officials.
Drazen Erdemovic, 31, took the stand against the former Yugoslav president as prosecutors entered a final, critical stage of their case, in which they will try to prove the allegations that he orchestrated the most heinous crime of the Balkan wars -- genocide in Bosnia.
Erdemovic, who himself pleaded guilty to murder as part of a deal with prosecutors in 1996 and has served a five-year sentence, described how on July 11, 1995, his battalion summarily shot 1,000-1,200 people at a farm in the northeastern enclave Srebrenica.
He said that in spite of moral objections, he participated in the killing spree for four hours straight before being relieved.
"I was personally ordered to do it," Erdemovic said.
"This could not have happened if it had not been allowed by the main staff" of the Bosnian Serb military command, he said.
Testifying as a protected witness -- out of the sight of the court's public gallery, and with his image blurred on a broadcast of the proceedings -- Erdemovic said the operation was too extensive and organized to have been carried out without approval from regional commanders.
Milosevic denied involvement in the killings and blamed mercenaries who he said had been paid in gold for work allegedly commissioned by the French intelligence. "Neither Serbia nor I have anything to do with these events in Srebrenica," he said.
Erdemovic said he believed that the orders came from a lieutenant colonel whose name he did not know, but he identified several other participants in the killings based on photographs and video footage shown in court by prosecutors.
Erdemovic, who served in a sabotage unit under the Department of Security, Safety and Intelligence, was the first witness to appear at the UN court after a three-week summer recess.
In the next four months, prosecutors will attempt to link Milosevic to the murder of an estimated 7,500 Muslim boys and men from Srebrenica.
They will also present evidence on the three-year siege of Sarajevo.
After the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, Serb forces rounded up some 30,000 refugees who had sought safety at a UN base.
As Dutch peacekeepers looked on, the women were deported to Muslim-held territory and the boys and men were transported on 50 to 60 busses to execution sites.
The prisoners, many blindfolded and bound at the wrists, were lined up in rows and shot, first with machine guns and later with single pistol shots to the head.
Prosecutors say the massacres were the result of Milosevic's alleged political aim of creating an ethnically pure Serbian state.
Milosevic, who denies all wrongdoing and rejects the authority of the court, is defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia.
Erdemovic also testified in the genocide trial of Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic, who was convicted in 2001.
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